The azure sea, but a lonely, fulfilled life.

Totsuka Saika looked at her long-lost friend. After leaving Soubu High School, she rarely heard from him. He had never spoken in the class group chat, as if he had vanished into thin air.

It's wonderful to be able to reunite here, after all, he doesn't want to lose this good friend who has helped him so much.

"Ah, there are many, many reasons."

Hachiman scratched his cheek, his tone uncertain. He couldn't very well say that he came here to catch his friend cheating, as that might cause a bad misunderstanding.

His excuses aroused the other person's suspicion. Totsuka stared at his face, and suddenly, he moved forward a little, his face getting closer and closer to his.

"……What's wrong?"

He awkwardly moved closer to the empty seat, but still couldn't escape the other party's magical clutches. Totsuka's slender, white index finger lightly touched his face, her eyes smiling.

"do you remember?"

Hachiman Hikigaya's cheeks flushed slightly. Of course he remembered that this was the action the other person had made when they met for the second time. But why was he recreating the scene from before at this moment?

"We're friends, aren't we, Hachiman?"

Totsuka gently pulled his hand over, opened his tightly clenched fist, and under his astonished gaze, reached out and opened his five fingers, interlocking them together.

The boy's hands were slightly cool. He guided their clasped hands to rise, his eyes smiling: "It's proof."

Gazing at his adorable smile, at that moment, Hachiman Hikigaya felt as if he had ascended to heaven, and his heart skipped a few seconds.

"So, tell me properly about what happened to Hachiman recently."

"I……"

"You bastard!!!"

A loud shout interrupted the tender moment between the two. Hachiman Hikigaya turned his gaze and saw Kitahara Iori, whose face was contorted and whose veins were bulging on his forehead. However, what caught his attention more was the girl following behind her.

After seeing him holding hands with Totsuka, the girl revealed an extremely lewd and lewd smile, a smile he had seen dozens of times in Soubu High School.

Did you arrange to come with Totsuka, Ebina-kun?

If she's here, does that mean that idiot blonde is here too? Wait, could Yui Hama be here as well?

Hachiman Hikigaya gasped, reluctantly releasing Totsuka's hand and standing up. At this moment, it was best not to think about the trouble that might follow and to deal with the immediate problem first.

"Where have you run off to, you disobedient child!"

He looked at Kitahara Iori and rebuked him first, saying that he couldn't just wait around at a time like this, otherwise this guy would definitely cause trouble.

"A child?" Totsuka covered his mouth in surprise, while the girl standing behind Kitahara Iori glanced at the two of them with a meaningful look.

Under his preconceived notion, Kitahara Iori's momentum immediately weakened: "I'll go with Kohei."

"Didn't you notice I wasn't here?"

"I was holding your arm, but I grabbed the wrong one."

Kitahara Iori also felt somewhat aggrieved. Who would have thought that he was holding the hand of the person behind him?

So that's how it is. It seems that when Ebina walked in at the entrance, he was led astray by Iori, who was only focused on Kohei.

"You're really quite careless."

Kitahara Iori lowered her head, admitting her mistake, but then realized something was wrong and suddenly looked up.

"What right do you have to criticize me, you bastard? While I was painstakingly tracking you down, you were busy picking up girls!"

And the girl is so beautiful! How come this guy always has such gorgeous girls around him wherever he goes? He's not even wearing glasses right now, and his dead fish eyes look like he's been in the sun for too long. Plus, he's wearing an anime costume. How can he still attract girls like this? How is that possible?

"Um, I didn't..." Upon hearing this, Totsuka waved his hand, about to explain, when Ebina walked up to him and stopped him from speaking.

She said with a wicked grin, "Hachigaya-kun really hasn't given up on Saika, so he came here today on purpose, didn't he?"

Sure enough? Could it be that the reason he came with me was to take this opportunity to meet his old flame?

Kitahara Iori's eyes sharpened as he grasped the key point in the words. So, it turned out that the person he should have been most wary of was him.

Thinking this and feeling regretful, he completely forgot that he had dragged this person here that morning.

"Do you really have to stir things up at a time like this, Ebina-kun?" Hachiman sighed helplessly.

"Oh my, so you actually came to see me?" the girl smiled.

Another lover? Kitahara Iori's worldview is crumbling.

"Ha, I would rather come looking for timber slabs than for you."

It makes sense that this guy is here, at least. He's a light novel otaku, but there are plenty of anime adaptations of light novels here, so I'm sure he'll be interested in them too.

"Oh ho, so Hikigaya-kun loves Zaimokuza-kun even more."

Ebina smiled and called out in a certain direction.

"Zaimuza-kun."

"Who called me?"

A burly, white-haired, bespectacled nerdy guy peeked out from the pachinko shop next door. When he saw Hachiman staring at him with a speechless expression and twitching lips, he took off his glasses in disbelief and rubbed his eyes.

"Holy crap! Hachiman Daisatsu has appeared!"

Facing Yoshiteru Zaimokuza, who was rushing towards him with outstretched arms, ready to give him a bear hug, Hachiman Hikigaya took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

As he just said, that makes perfect sense... my ass!

Is today some kind of class reunion that wasn't announced?

take a day off

Sorry, I'm stuck.

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Cheese potato chips (repeated 6 times)

Chapter 44 Akihabara - Voice Actor Meet and Greet (Part 2)

With the number of people suddenly increasing, the benches in the indoor rest area were clearly no longer a place for them to talk. So, Hachiman Hikigaya, who was in charge between the two sides, decided to temporarily abandon his pursuit of Kohei Imamura and instead find a store with few customers to have a good "greet" with his long-lost acquaintance.

After several twists and turns, he chose an open-air café located outside the supermarket. The café had a wide view and a clear view of the supermarket entrance, which would ensure that if Kohei Imamura left, he would be noticed and wouldn't have to go in to look for him later.

Sitting on a folding wooden chair, he accepted the menu from the waiter. He first handed the menu to Ebina Hina, who was a woman, and after being teased for her gentlemanly manners, he casually mentioned it.

"Did you all plan to come and play together today?"

"Hmm." Hina Ebina ordered an Americano latte and passed the menu to Ayaka Totsuka. "We both got into schools around here, so we get together occasionally."

"Really? This is the first time I've heard of that."

Hachiman Hikigaya looked at the three of them with some surprise. He wasn't surprised that Totsuka and Ebina had a good relationship, since they often talked in high school. Although their conversations were often about unusual and incomprehensible topics, their relationship had clearly reached the level of friends.

The question is, how did they end up meeting up with that guy, Zaimokuza? I never heard them talk to each other back in Soubu High.

"That's because you haven't contacted us since you left Soubu High School, Hachiman."

Totsuka Ayaka puffed out her cheeks in annoyance. They were such good friends, yet they had lost all contact after graduation. Keep in mind, this wasn't even the time when they were grown up and starting their careers; they had only graduated from high school!

We should have had more time to hang out together in college, right?

"……Feel sorry."

Hachiman Hikigaya clasped his hands together. He was feeling a bit confused at the time, and he had also had an unpleasant argument with his parents because of his determination to go to Izu, so he forgot to maintain his friendships.

“That’s just the kind of person Hachiman is.” Zaimokuza let out a chuunibyou-esque arrogant laugh. “His true nature is that he doesn’t care about details. What’s that saying again?”

He placed his hand on his forehead, his tone deep, as if imitating the famous sculpture "The Thinker": "A wandering, solitary soul needs no place to be bound."

A blush crept onto Hachiman Hikigaya's neck. Where did this guy even know that phrase?! Damn it, having something I said used as a black mark on my past is really embarrassing.

Yoshiteru Zaimoto's elaborate performance amused Hina Ebina, whose shoulders trembled as she exclaimed, "Yes, yes, that's exactly how it looks!"

"This isn't something to laugh about, is it?" Hachiman Hikigaya glanced at the girl speechlessly. This girl had never been this mean before.

He shook his head, hesitant and uneasy: "Ebina, that..."

He wanted to ask if there were any other people he knew besides the three of them, since it was common knowledge that popular groups would often appear together.

If it were just that blonde drill girl, that would be fine, but he's afraid of running into that stupid, stubborn guy.

He hadn't figured out how to explain the time she texted him asking about the scenery in Izu, and how he sent her a picture of the sea before turning off his phone, resulting in him not replying to several of her messages.

Keep in mind that, to this day, he hasn't replied to any of her subsequent text messages. He hasn't even opened the chat window, thus keeping the messages in an unread state.

He was deliberately trying to distance himself from the other person.

I clearly told that idiot there was no need to wait for him.

His hesitant expression made Hina Ebina immediately understand what he was thinking, and she waved her hand.

"It's just the three of us; none of your old flames came."

"That's good."

Hachiman Hikigaya breathed a sigh of relief, then realized something was amiss. He rolled his deadpan eyes at Ebina, who was all smiles, and said, "We're just members of a club."

"Yeah, I know, I know." Hina Ebina nodded casually, completely perfunctory. "Someone may have high emotional intelligence, but their brain is just one-track mind."

"...Is this person referring to me?"

"Not at all," she waved casually again.

"This is clearly referring to me," Hachiman Hikigaya looked at the other person, remaining silent.

Meanwhile, Kitahara Iori, who had been observing from the sidelines, silently watched the scene unfold before him. As someone who had arrived first and was at the back of the conversation, he was completely unable to get a word in edgewise.

As the old saying goes, "A friend of a friend is not my friend." Among these three, there is a considerable gap between the first and the third.

Kitahara Iori gritted his teeth. He didn't want things to be like this. As Hachiman's best friend at this stage, he wanted to accept Hachiman's former friends. Therefore, he wanted to break down this barrier.

So he gestured to the waiter, and as the waiter leaned over to listen, he whispered, "Could you please add a pound of croton seeds to the coffee that the black-haired, dead-eyed guy ordered? Don't worry, I'll handle anything that goes wrong."

How to break down the barrier between the two sides of the center that cannot contact each other? It's simple: just eliminate the center.

Damn social butterfly, go explode!

"This, sir..."

The waiter looked at him somewhat awkwardly, then at Hachiman Hikigaya, who looked speechless, and took the menu back.

"Sorry, you don't need to pay attention to him, he's not very bright. Um, I'd like a cappuccino."

Watching the shop assistant hurriedly leave, Hachiman Hikigaya turned his gaze back to the person who had just tried to poison him. He coughed and introduced him to everyone: "Um, this is Kitahara Iori, the nephew of the innkeeper I'm currently staying at. He's my friend."

Although he really wanted to use the term "bad friend" to describe the other person, he thought it best to give him some face in front of outsiders.

Sigh, being a single father with a troublesome child is really tough.

Hachiman Hikigaya sighed helplessly, then, as if remembering something, he looked at Kitahara Iori and Ebina Hina with a strange expression. Although he guessed that it was Iori, the careless one, who had grabbed the person and run away without seeing clearly, why did Ebina, who had been grabbed, not react at all?

Hina Ebina noticed his suspicious gaze, adjusted her glasses, and the sunlight reflected off the lenses.

Considering there was someone she didn't know well present, she whispered to Hachiman, "This is a real-life sweet comedy between two men. A cold-hearted man who doesn't care about his lover comes to this bustling place alone. The neglected partner suspects that he has someone else in his heart and secretly follows him, only to find out that his lover just wanted to buy him a gift to celebrate their third anniversary. His previous coldness was just to highlight the contrast on the holiday. How could I miss such a great storyline?"

Her breathing became heavier, and seeing her so agitated, Hachiman Hikigaya was afraid that she would have a nosebleed at any moment. Fortunately, she controlled her emotions and her face returned to the expression of a well-bred lady.

Okay, he's overthinking it.

Perhaps because they were the only customers, their drinks were served very quickly.

"A friend of my friend is naturally my friend."

Yoshiteru Zaimoto held out a cold cup of coffee to Iori Kitahara, a confident smile on his face. This was a way for men to make friends. On the desolate battlefield after the clamor, two wanderers who had faced death together but did not know each other's names sat on a rotten log. They held fine wine that they had just plundered from the enemy camp. One of them raised his jar and handed it to the other. The other smiled, picked up his own jar, and bumped it against the other's. After that, they became companions. What a romantic and sexually charged scene.

As he expected, Kitahara Iori raised her cup and clinked it against his coffee.

“My name is Yoshiteru Zaimokuza, and I am a general.”

"What a coincidence, I am also a general."

"May I ask which army you command?"